Bob's Blog :

The YH-878AD 2-IN-1 smd soldering iron hot air rework solder station

h1. Solder station needed.
After looking at Ebay, Craigslist, and finally Amazon. I found and ordered what I thought would be a comprise in price/quality/availability, link.

YH-878AD

Yes, it is “Made in China”. I’m sorry, but the price was right for my corporate budget, (okay, my allowance). Anyway, here it is.

YH-878AD Solder Station

I received it within a week of ordering it. And everything was fine. Nothing broken or used for that matter. Instructions are something to be desired, but if you can read your kids text messages then you can read the Chinese instructions,

Instruction manual – Chinese

converted to English.

Instruction manual – English

I have to give them a hand, at least they are trying to get their instructions readable.
I started pulling out the contents and this came out, what is it?

IC remover?

After much googleing it turns that it is an IC remover. Okay.

The soldering iron uses a tip style that looks similar to a Weller. I’ll check with the local Radio Shack and the local Grainger store in town.

Solder Iron Tip broken out

My only issue with this product, right now, is that it didn’t come with a parts list or a catalog to order more tips or whatever I need to use with it. The company website was difficult locate and it doesn’t list my model number, even though it is made by them. (YiHua)
The manufacturer is Guangzhou YiHua Electronic Equipment Co., Ltd. located in the Long Gui YongXing industrial area of Mainland China. They also make other higher end solder stations and accessories for their stations. I’ve emailed the company for a catalog, we’ll see how that goes.
I will be using this product for most, if not all, of my projects. I’ll report how it performs as I use it. Thank you for patiently reading this blog.

Until next time, check out my future hired hand.

Bob’s minion

Conclusion.

I used both solder stations this weekend. My 11 year old daughter Rachel was able to use the YH-878AD without too much trouble. But, I’m not sure I would purchase another because of the display and tip replacement issues.
I recommend it for a hobbyist and small business, but wouldn’t recommend it for medium or large businesses.

Comments on this post:

4 years ago: Thanks for the post Bob, looking forward to your real-world-usage report. When you do find out where to buy more tips, I'd stock up on them heavily so you never have to hunt for them down the road.

On your link to YiHua, if you look at the YH-898D station, it looks the same as yours. And if you look at the .pdf on the YH-898 page, the header says YH-898, but the text starts out "YH-878D desolder station...". I'm betting they are the same; perhaps one is 110V, the other 220V.

4 years ago: Thank you Joe and Gary. I'll make sure to include solder station useage in my future blogs. And thank you for the heads up for the pdf Gary, I'll bet your right about 110/220. The box of the station I received says 220v, but on the back of the unit it says 110v. I'll find out as soon as I use it later this week.